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ModifyImageAttribute

Event

Modifies attributes of an AMI, such as making it public or sharing it with specific AWS accounts.

Security Context

  • Impairing defenses allows adversaries to operate freely by removing security controls that would otherwise detect or block their activity.
  • Creating or accessing snapshots and images can expose full disk contents, including credentials, application data, and configuration secrets.
  • Transferring data to external cloud accounts or regions can bypass network-based data loss prevention controls and exfiltrate large volumes of data.

Log Source

CloudTrail

Sample Event

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactics: Defense Evasion Exfiltration Collection

Techniques:
  • T1562 — Impair Defenses — Adversaries may maliciously modify components of a victim environment in order to hinder or disable defensive mechanisms. This not only involves impairing preventative defenses, such as firewalls and anti-virus, but also detection capabilities that defenders can use to audit activity and identify...
  • T1578 — Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure — An adversary may attempt to modify a cloud account's compute service infrastructure to evade defenses. A modification to the compute service infrastructure can include the creation, deletion, or modification of one or more components such as compute instances, virtual machines, and snapshots.
  • T1537 — Transfer Data to Cloud Account — Adversaries may exfiltrate data by transferring the data, including through sharing/syncing and creating backups of cloud environments, to another cloud account they control on the same service. A defender who is monitoring for large transfers to outside the cloud environment through normal file ...